


as the world falls down

by Nebbles



Series: Felix rarepair week 2021 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Silver Snow Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29029581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebbles/pseuds/Nebbles
Summary: “And have you come to terms with that?” Ferdinand’s fingers wrap around Felix’s, desperate for comfort.Felix doesn’t answer. If he breathes the words into the air, he’ll never be able to take them back. They’ll be tangible, hanging over him like the thick clouds that signaled oncoming storms, swallowing him up whole.“Felix,” he says, “do you harbor any regrets?”------On a dorm bed that is much too small, Ferdinand and Felix share in their laments about the war.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Felix rarepair week 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134791
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19
Collections: Felix Rarepair Week 2021





	as the world falls down

**Author's Note:**

> Been a while since I wrote some good, heartstrings-pulling angst, huh?
> 
> For Day 4: Broken heart+Turncoat

“Are you asleep?”

He hears this in a quiet voice, as if asking such a thing could be labeled as a sin. It’s never a good question to hear, less so in the throes of war. Felix isn’t sure the last time he’s had a full night’s rest, or one that he awoke from without a head stuffed with cotton, mouth dry. He’s sleeping enough to fight, and he once thought that was good enough, but it’s getting harder to believe the longer he lies awake at night.

It’s less tortuous to endure with someone at your side, despite how you’re faced with the fact they feel just as horrible as you do, perhaps worse. 

“I’m not.” Felix shifts onto his other side, meeting Ferdinand’s worried gaze. “Never fell asleep in the first place.” 

“I did not either. I have tried to chase it, but it continues to elude me.” His voice is small. Felix misses how boisterous it used to be. “I do not even know why. Enbarr is still out of arm’s reach.”

Aillel’s heat claims its victims. Myrddin is a bloody memory. Familiar faces are buried, and never once has Felix flinched. He’s forced himself to look away, forced himself to forget how pale Ashe was against the flames. Ferdinand’s acted less like himself since Lorenz’s blood colored Myrrdin’s cobblestone a deep red. Felix doesn’t blame him. At the end of the day, they’re children fighting in a war they never should have to raise their arms for in the first place.

He doesn’t know if Sylvain and Ingrid are still alive. He’s less sure of his father.

He tries to not think about Dimitri. About what he’s heard.

“One would think all this fighting would wear us down to our bones.” Through the pale streaks of moonlight that spill across their bed, Felix sees how dull Ferdinand’s eyes have become. “Yet we lie awake, thinking of our previous battle and dreading the next.”

Felix still holds his appetite for battle, to get stronger, and it’s easier to focus on that than the heaviness that threatens to seize his heart. He doesn’t have time to regret; regrets are nothing more than distractions. If he spends time lamenting each fallen soldier on the battlefield, he may as well drop his sword and join them. “We’re in the middle of a war.”

“I am aware of this.” Ferdinand’s sigh is heavier than the armor he wears. “But every step we take draws us closer to battling Edelgard. I am to raise my lance against the one I once swore to work under. I am killing soldiers who bear the banner of my homeland.”

“You’re following your own path.” Felix turns his gaze to their conjoined hands. They’re one of the few areas on their bodies not littered with scars. “I thought you were proud of that.”

Ferdinand is quiet for a few moments. “It is… difficult. I do not regret defending the monastery. But I wish that Adrestia’s downfall was not… that is what my name shall be synonymous with. Our marks in the history books will be defined by how we are traitors. It is what others shall know us as.”

Felix presses his lips into a thin line. There’s no Kingdom left to speak of, and he’s sure no one’s going to waste time writing about his so-called accomplishments. He’s left Faerghus behind, his last words to his old man about how he isn’t serving the boar. Fraldarius is still fighting against the Empire, along with Gautier. He’s left his old home, his friends, his family to die. He’s far from Glenn’s shadow here. 

“I accepted that when I left.” A part of Felix still hasn’t, and he wills it down everytime it attempts to fester in his heart. “I didn’t want to follow the path everyone kept expecting me to.”

“We have both gone off the beaten path. I do not see myself as prime minister anytime soon, Felix.” Ferdinand gives a quiet, broken laugh. “They would not be interested in a traitor such as myself.”

It stings Felix more than he expects upon hearing this. Despite how he used to roll his eyes at how Ferdinand used to brag of his name, of his future, it’s disquieting to hear how he’s lost his resolve. Even if there’s truth to Ferdinand’s words, that Adrestia would never want him back, it settles an uncomfortable feeling in Felix’s chest.

“I saw how they treated my father.” Ferdinand’s voice drops to a whisper. “I would be a fool to not think that extends towards me.”

Hrym was chaos, and that is an understatement. While they were able to save the lives of the innocent, bodies of bandits littered the blood-paved streets. They’d attempted to start fires, destroy homes and market stalls, anything to swallow up the territory in the maelstrom of war. It’s a memory clear in their mind, defined by the example they had made of Duke Aegir. 

Felix can recall all too well the way Ferdinand  _ screamed  _ upon seeing his father’s head upon a pike, a bandit’s recompense for the suffering they had under his rule. He remembers the march back, and how the rations in Ferdinand’s stomach stained the trampled grasses. He remembers holding Ferdinand tight, listening to his wailing sobs in their tent, how that could have been him, should have been him—Goddess, Felix, that could have been  _ him.  _

War is unkind to its survivors.

“It’s not like I can return to Faerghus. Even if Fraldarius is still standing, I left it and never looked back.” He grips Ferdinand’s hand tighter. “They wouldn’t want me either.” 

“And have you come to terms with that?” Ferdinand’s fingers wrap around Felix’s, desperate for comfort. 

Felix doesn’t answer. If he breathes the words into the air, he’ll never be able to take them back. They’ll be tangible, hanging over him like the thick clouds that signaled oncoming storms, swallowing him up whole. 

“Felix,” he says, “do you harbor any regrets?” 

It’s suddenly harder to swallow. No war is without regrets, but it never means it’s easier to face any. Felix feels smaller, curling up slightly as he still refuses to meet Ferdinand’s gaze. He can’t ignore the question, he can’t ignore him after Ferdinand’s poured out his heart and then some on this too small dorm bed in the late hours of the night, chasing rest that’s always out of arm’s reach.

“I wasn’t there when Dimitri died.” 

It’s as simple as that. There’s no closure to be had on their story, no chance to wonder if Dimitri could have been stopped. Could have been saved. He’s just another victim to war, the mad king soaked in the blood of Imperial soldiers, his last breath damning the Emperor and all that she stood for. 

“I don’t—I don’t even know if my old man is alive. Sylvain and Ingrid are probably dead. Their last memories of me—what, they’re of me betraying them? Faerghus?” And now that he’s let himself talk, the words refuse to stop. “I told myself I wouldn’t care, that I was to follow my own path, and I—I just—!”

He blinks, and finds that his vision is blurred by tears that hold his anger, his regrets, heartache that he willed down with each swing of his blade. Felix’s breath hitches, nails digging into Ferdinand’s hands, trying to stop his body from trembling the way it is. Ferdinand doesn’t deserve to watch him to cry, to hear these painful sobs, but it’s not as if Felix has deserved to witness the same.

Ferdinand doesn’t speak, and draws Felix close to his chest, rubbing circles into his back. He doesn’t need to see the other’s expression to know the pain he bears, the furrowed brow, the wavering lip as he tries to prevent tears of his own.

“I shouldn’t miss them. I left, Ferdinand—I’m not supposed—” He isn’t even sure where these thoughts are going, or if he’s just airing out every scattered thought he’s had during this damn war. “I’m not supposed to  _ care _ !”

“They are still people you once knew, my Felix.” Ferdinand’s other hand coasts through his hair, slow and caring. “Edelgard and Hubert are waiting for me in Enbarr, and my orders are to stop them. I can put this burden on no other.”

The rest of the Black Eagles may have sided with the church, with Byleth, but it’s Ferdinand’s job alone to finish what he has started. Since their return to the monastery, he’s taken to lead the campaign, despite Seteth’s insistence the knights have their bases covered. Felix knows the extra work is to distract him, an attempt to keep the hurt at bay, but there’s only so much a dam can hold back until it breaks.

“Perhaps it is foolish, but I still regard them as my friends,” he continues, “despite the contempt they hold towards me, there is a part of me that cannot let go. They are my last ties to Adrestia, and once I have killed them, I truly have no reason to return. Perhaps that is my regret, Felix, that I cannot let go of my past as well. I am a traitor and a fool.”

His fingers weave their way into Ferdinand’s hair, gripping onto it, afraid to let go—that if he does, they’ll somehow drift away from the safety of their shared bed. “They—they betrayed you. They betrayed everyone else.”

“Were it only so simple, we would not feel this way. While that may hold some truths, that does not change the fact the world expected me to stand at Edelgard’s side.” Ferdinand’s voice is more steady than his own, but watery all the same. “And it shall not change the fact their blood shall wet my lance.”

Perhaps Felix’s next regret is that he’s made Ferdinand cry once more. He’s let his emotions bubble under the surface after years of forcing them down. Felix has never been immune to them, and neither has Ferdinand, but they’ve been rather poor at addressing them properly. They bottle each negative emotion up, not allowing themselves moments of honesty until it crashes upon them like a wave, threatening to drag them into the sea, drowning them in their laments. 

He hates any words of comfort are lost upon him as another sob tears through his throat. Felix doesn’t even remember the last time he cried—perhaps it was when Glenn died—in a way that made his chest heave. He should be returning something to Ferdinand, attempting to keep him above the surface, but the waters are deeper than he thought. 

“Do not hold back on my account.” Ferdinand noses into his hair, sniffling softly. “Please, Felix. You have been so strong for me… it is only fair that I can be that way for you.”

“You—” Stop talking, his mind says, and allow yourself to feel. There’s safety to be found within Ferdinand’s arms. Even if crying is hardly a good way to exhaust oneself to sleep, it’s far better than what they’ve had before. Even if they’ll still feel horrible the next morning, they have each other. Felix tries to keep this in mind as he weeps harder, unsure if these tears are born of anger. 

Ferdinand curls around him, tangling their legs together, resting his chin on the top of Felix’s head. His tears are silent, eyes closed, heart aching as the cries of his lover chill the night air. His hold on Felix remains tight as ever, knowing even if they were in the largest bed Fodlan had to offer, they would still be this close. 

“I do not regret you, however,” comes his voice after some silence, “that is something I shall always hold dear. We have found each other in this terrible war, and I am thankful for it. For you. I know that these difficulties would be terrible to bear alone. Lost as we may are, Felix, perhaps there is an unlit path we have yet to discover.”

Felix doesn’t know what they’ll do after the war, other than survive. They’re wayward souls, bound to no land or purpose. Perhaps what Ferdinand says is true, and there’s somewhere in the world where they’ll find themselves, where they’ll be safe. It may not lie in the lands they once called home, and there lies the chance it reaches beyond Fódlan’s borders. 

“Wherever you go, I will follow. I do not envision a future where we are not as one.” Ferdinand takes one of Felix’s hands, slowly wrapping his fingers around it. “I am uncertain of where we shall be, but… at your side, I am less afraid.”

A reply lodges itself in Felix’s throat, buried in another sob that leaves him. He isn’t sure why the tears aren’t stopping. Maybe his heart is making up for lost time.

“We are aware we cannot bring back those we have lost, or alter what decisions our past selves have made.” Felix feels Ferdinand’s lips brush through his hair. “All we can do is continue to be at each other’s side. Even if I may not be much, I am honored you shall continue to have me.”

“I-Idiot—you—” Felix sniffles loudly, and forces himself to meet Ferdinand’s own red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t want anyone else.”

The smile Ferdinand gives is sad and small, but present nonetheless. He presses a gentle kiss to Felix’s brow, leaning their foreheads together afterward. “I know, my starlight. I am not going anywhere.”

The name only makes Felix cling to Ferdinand tighter, nuzzling more against him. He’s too tired to think, replies muddled in his brain, but knows his actions will be good enough for now. Most of his tears have stayed by now, nothing but quiet sniffles as Ferdinand gently threads his fingers through Felix’s hair. While this certainly isn’t how he expected the night to end, perhaps it’s better they’ve gotten this cry out of their systems. Felix does feel somewhat lighter, and he hopes Ferdinand does as well.

“Rest your eyes, Felix. Let me sing you a lullaby to bless us with good dreams.” Ferdinand brings the covers over them more, as if it’s a barrier to protect them from the world outside their room. “We will see each other in the morning.” 

Felix nods as he curls up into Ferdinand’s chest once more, eyes closed, focusing on nothing else but the soft melody that fills the air. It pushes back the heavy atmosphere in the room, Ferdinand’s light warming them both. 

He falls asleep halfway through the song, Ferdinand’s hands intertwined in his, and tries to dream of a happy future.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, make sure to leave a comment/kudos! If you want to hear about future works and rambles, make sure to follow me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/that_nebbles)


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